Thursday, November 27, 2008

Study shows benefits to paternal involvement

Another research study has shown that kids are more intelligent and reach higher education levels if they spend more time with their dads.

The data came from a huge cohort of 17k British kids who have been tracked since 1958. The study controlled for socioeconomic status (SES) and found that high-SES dads make more of a positive difference to their kids than low-SES dads. It says:

Paternal involvement does not just have a temporary effect in early life. Instead, cohort members who had received high paternal involvement were more upwardly mobile than those receiving low involvement, and the difference was still detectable at age 42.

The research article is in the latest issue of an academic journal. Nettle, D. (2008). Why do some dads get more involved than others? Evidence from a large British cohort. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29, 416-423. Available from the author's web page.

There are many studies like this. Those who prevent fathers from seeing their kids are doing measurable harm to those kids.